[T]he Affordable Care Act (ACA) limits insurance company to spending 15% for administrative overhead. The ACA is going to also attempt to limit insurance company profit. ... Although the jury is still out, many studies thus far are already predicting -- due to its cost control measures -- that the Affordale Care Act should actually lessen the cost of medical care in the United States.

But here's the BuzzFlash at Truthout challenge, which we have mentioned before: if you are young or on the younger side of middle age, you can be responsible, in cash (without relying on any government assistance whatsoever), when your parents become ill. [...]

So let their children who might balk at the Affordable Care Act pay for their mom and dad's healthcare if there is no ACA. Also, let that young person who doesn't currently have insurance, but can afford it, sign a legal document that they will not use any government funds if they become ill or have a serious accident.

Let's go a step further and challenge those Tea Partiers and Republicans and some Democrats who want to cut back on Social Security and Medicare. (After all, "the grand bargain" proponents use the same strategy of telling young workers that they will be paying into Social Security at a higher rate in order to cover the aging population.) You and those who agree with you must first sign a similar legal document that declares that you will support your parents and supplement their meager Social Security incomes as the government cuts back the checks that they earned as they worked toward retirement. [...]

And when these young or under-50 haters of the federal government complain that they are bankrupt from paying for medical care and their parents' stay in the nursing home, just tell them to -- in the colloquial -- shove it.

A majority of Americans with 401(k)-type savings accounts are accumulating debt faster than they are setting aside money for retirement, further undermining the nation’s troubled system for old-age saving, a new report has found....

[...]

So the problem facing even non-Social Security dependent retirees (who have earned their checks by paying into the fund) is due to personal debt not national debt. What people owe money on are non-government expenses such as college, housing, cars, credit cards, etc. This is private indebtedness that is contributing to a looming personal retirement shortfall of funds.

Since the Reagan era, wages have been relatively stagnant in the United States as debt has risen. It is indeed this growing personal (again not national) debt that has been a primary source of profit for the banks too big to fail. Persons who owe large amounts of money are paying off interest at often exorbitant sums (think credit cards) while in many cases barely scratching away at principal. This is all easy money for banks that are paying out literally .01 % on savings accounts. [...]

So, let this WP article be a mini-lesson on what the oligarchy and their minions on the Hill, such as Paul Ryan, have been up to. Since the Reagan era, they have been promoting policies that increase personal debt while stagnating wages (except for themselves, of course). In turn, a likely majority of the 99% has to go into debt and borrow money at high interest rates, while those who save receive virtually no interest on their savings. This, in turn (except for Social Security) limits what they can save for retirement.

Then the financial titans sponsor think tanks and give campaign contributions to blame "entitlements" for all the personal indebtedness which has fueled their profits. So, if a "grand bargain" of Social Security and Medicare cuts are enacted, the elderly become indebted and poorer, while the Wall Street barons make even a greater profit from increased borrowing as the national debt is lowered in the name of "austerity" (without revenue increases in the form of higher progressive taxes on the rich).

John Sidney McCain is a 27-year veteran of the Senate. He's run for president and lost. He's gone from "maverick" to tea party suck-up to tea party critic and back to maverick. He inexplicably failed to thoroughly vet tea party darling Sarah Palin and chose her as his cringe-worthy running mate, apparently oblivious to her ineptitude and loonitude. He wants to bomb-bomb-bomb just about everyone, and has been a fixture for so long that his latest policy position pendulum swing is to actually legalize weed.

In other words, he's been around a long, long time and has committed the political crime of overkill, but somehow he's oblivious to that, too.

The Wrap did an interview with Grampy McCain, and The Hill has highlights. The Hill's headline is "McCain hints at retirement in 2016":

“The president and I, he's in his last term, I'm probably in mine, the relationship we have had over the past three years is quite good,” McCain told The Wrap in an interview. “Quite good."

The 77-year-old's current term is up in 2016. When asked if this would really be his last term, McCain backtracked a bit.

“Nah, I don’t know,” McCain said. “I was trying to make a point. I have to decide in about two years so I don’t have to make a decision. I don’t want to be one of these old guys that should’ve shoved off.”